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On the first U.S. Inauguration Day in 1789, President-elect George Washington took the oath of office. That was all the Constitution required him to do that day. But he did something more:

“He gave a speech,” writes Claire Jerry, a political history curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. “Every president since has followed his example and delivered an inaugural address as part of the national celebration.”

There have been 59 inaugural addresses, including the one that Washington gave that day, Jerry tells us. “And while they may have differed in style and even specific subjects,” they all contain certain characteristics, ranging from calls to unify the country to reaffirming national values.

Jerry’s story is accompanied by photos of inauguration-related items from the museum’s collection. There’s a commemorative ceramic pitcher emblazoned with a quote: “We are all Republicans … all Federalists,” from Thomas Jefferson’s first inaugural address in 1801; a button commemorating the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama features images of Obama and Abraham Lincoln; and the official program from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1933 inauguration bears the image of a sailing ship navigating rough, blue seas.

Each of these images captures themes conveyed in inaugural speeches. Will Donald Trump’s inaugural speech in Washington today hit the same notes as Thomas Jefferson, William McKinley and Barack Obama? At roughly noon today, we should find out.

Politics + Society

A brief history of presidential inaugural speeches, from George Washington to today

Claire Jerry, Smithsonian Institution

Inaugural addresses that newly minted presidents have given over the past 250 years have aimed to do several key things, including unify the country and establish the speaker’s qualifications for the job.

• Civil servants brace for a second Trump presidency

  Jaime L Kucinskas, Hamilton College

  Many federal employees fear they may end up in ethical binds, caught between the instructions of their bosses and their duty to serve the American people.

• Trump’s idea to use military to deport over 10 million migrants faces legal, constitutional and practical hurdles

  Cassandra Burke Robertson, Case Western Reserve University; Irina D. Manta, Hofstra University

  The president has vast authority over the armed forces, but using them to secure the border would quickly unleash legal chaos, say lawyers.

• Texas is already policing the Mexican border − and will play an outsize role in any Trump plan to crack down on immigration

  Dan DeBree, Texas A&M University

  Enforcing immigration law at the border is the federal government’s role. But in Texas, that job has increasingly been taken on by the state. That shift may be key to Donald Trump’s border plans.

• How Trump could try to stay in power after his second term ends

  Philip Klinkner, Hamilton College

  Though the 22nd Amendment prohibits Trump from being elected president again, it does not prohibit him from serving as president beyond Jan. 20, 2029. A schiolar of politics and history explains.

Science + Technology

• Astronauts on NASA’s Artemis mission to the Moon will need better boots − here’s why

  Jesse Rhoades, University of North Dakota; Rebecca Rhoades, University of North Dakota

  Wearing the wrong shoe on Earth can lead to injury. Researchers still need to figure out the physical consequences of spending a long time walking around on the Moon.

• What’s happening on RedNote? A media scholar explains the app TikTok users are fleeing to – and the cultural moment unfolding there

  Jianqing Chen, Washington University in St. Louis

  A digital media scholar and longtime RedNote user gives a firsthand account of US and Chinese social media users interacting on the app.

• Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban: 5 essential reads on the case and its consequences

  Eric Smalley, The Conversation; Matt Williams, The Conversation

  Whether the popular video app ends up sold, banned or untouched, the ruling in favor of the government’s national security claims has implications for free speech.

• Why is the sky blue?

  Daniel Freedman, University of Wisconsin-Stout

  The answer has to do with molecules.

Environment + Energy

• Neighbors and strangers pulled together to help LA fire survivors – 60 years of research shows these unsung heroes are crucial to disaster response

  Tricia Wachtendorf, University of Delaware; James Kendra, University of Delaware

  In emergencies, when every minute counts, research shows family, friends and neighbors are often saving lives. These local efforts go uncounted, yet they’re crucial.

Trending on site

• Firefighting planes are dumping ocean water on the Los Angeles fires − why using saltwater is typically a last resort

• Soaring wealth inequality has remade the map of American prosperity

• David Lynch exposed the rot at the heart of American culture

A theory that binds Trump with leading innovators, especially Elon Musk, is that you can bring tech and business talent and techniques together to take a wrecking ball to broken ideas and/or processes or entire agencies.

• This isn’t Trump’s instinctual motivation, aides say. He wants a strong stock market, slower inflation, low joblessness, the holy trinity of economic indicators.

But Musk, Marc Andreessen and a growing chorus of entrepreneurs and tech CEOs are fusing their “founder mode” mentality with Trump’s desire for fast growth.

• You have Silicon Valley’s best and brightest battling for bigger roles in reshaping government. Almost every CEO wants a slice of the action.

On a day like today, it’s worth reminding ourselves that it’s our money they are after

Capitalism differs from trade due primarily to its focus on profit. It brings in the concept of the mere presence of ‘capital’ leading to greater wealth – money making money. In some ways, while we have 3.6 billion people living in relative poverty globally, a system whereby those who already have wealth achieving greater wealth simply because they have wealth to begin with doesn’t make a lot of sense.

One would think that human civilisation would seek a system whereby it helps as many people as possible to achieve relative wealth. Alas, such a system has not made its way into the economic system, as of yet. Until it does, it is worth considering how to use our current capitalist system to affect change.

Even if such global consumer consciousness was not achieved, there is benefit at the local, community level of spending your money wisely. We know that money spent in the community and profit is generated by those who live in the community that the whole community prospers. The money stays in the community, as opposed to being sucked up by massive conglomerates and ends up in the international bank accounts of a few folks.

How political scientists misunderstood Trump and missed his appeal.

Trump did this by doing what academics are supposed to be expert in: recognizing that the popular understanding of some concept—in this case, populism—is actually constituted by two elements which are logically separable. In his more recent incarnation, Trump has held on to his disdain for longstanding norms and his populist belief in the unfettered prerogative of the majority. But he has also made more explicit than in the past that his political vision is open to supporters from every ethnic and religious group—and has been very shrewd in courting them with an aspirational vision of America.

Though the term is much-overused and often misapplied, the concept of populism remains the most accurate frame for understanding his actions: He believes that, as the rightful voice of the people, he should not suffer any artificial restrictions on his actions—whether by unwritten norms or by explicit limits on the powers of a president.

For the most part, the executive orders Trump announced in his Second Inaugural are tailor-made to support this vision. His promise to restore order to American cities will resonate among the poorer and more diverse segments of his electorate who are the prime victims of urban crime. His promise to restore free speech is broadly popular among voters without fancy degrees who feel that elites are using their arbitrary moral codes and linguistic conventions as cudgels to wield against them at will. Even his promise to “drill, baby, drill” is broadly popular among voters who are more focused on realizing their American Dream in the next few years than on containing the threat to the climate over the coming decades

The TikTok drama represents the crash of two powerful strains in American public life, a conflict that Trump has a flair for capitalizing on and even encouraging.

One is the full weight of America’s legal and democratic institutions — the Congress that overwhelmingly passed the law; the president who signed it; the Supreme Court that upheld it.

On the other side are Trump and TikTok: an app with 170 million upset American users, verging on an unruly mob, and a president with a drive to deliver populist “wins.”

For now its seems the digital crowd has the upper hand, in the latest, and maybe most potent, example of the new form of digital populism Trump has embraced.

Every conversation seems to circle back to how AI is transforming everything, from the newsroom to the classroom. Add in the persistent challenges of social media and a growing mental health crisis, and you’ve got the makings of what promises to be one of the most consequential Davos gatherings in years.

Among the most anticipated venues this year is Future House, a powerful collaboration between Human Change and Project Liberty. While Human Change focuses on reshaping the narrative around children’s mental health and digital well-being, Project Liberty, launched by Frank McCourt, is working to give people back control of their digital lives. Together, they’re convening experts and advocates to tackle some of our most pressing technological challenges. Their first session dives into how technology is fundamentally reshaping our sense of community.

The Democratic Party needs to become the reform and renewal party. It must stand on the side of ordinary Americans who are going to be abused by powerful interests like never before.

It must stand for economic growth and prosperity.

It must stand for national strength and the American flag.

It must have zero tolerance for the next Senator Menendez in its midst.